A very unfortunate incident for NASA and the commercial orbital transportation services program took place yesterday. The Antares rocket that was about to send the Cygnus spacecraft on the ISS exploded a few seconds after its launch from NASA’s Wallops flight facilities. No casualties or even small injuries were reported, although the area is being contained and treated with caution. It is a major incident for US spaceflight that breaks a trouble-free period and could have important implications for the private spaceflight sector.

Kirobo, a 13” humanoid robot, was launched today and is on its way to the International Space Station.

A mashup of the Japanese word for hope, “Kibo”, and “robot”, Kirobo is designed to be a companion and communicator for Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata who is expected to arrive at the space station later this year.

On June 17, 2013, Astronaut Chris Cassidy successfully drove a K10 rover on earth, via remote connection from the Surface Telerobotics Workbench on the International Space Station, showing that robots deployed to explore Mars or the far side of the moon could be remotely controlled by astronauts in space during future deep-space missions. Telerobotics, which involves human operators remotely controlling robotic arms, rovers and other devices in space, is one means of reducing risk in dull, dangerous or dirty tasks as humans explore space.

NASA has a long history of playing for high stakes; think of the 7 minutes of terror Curiosity descent to Mars, Spirit & Opportunity, and indeed, the entire space race. Yet when human lives and millions of dollars in technology are invested, it’s critical to keep risk at a minimum. As part of our series on ‘High-Risk / High-Reward’ robotics, we asked Dr. Terry Fong of the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, to describe how NASA’s telerobotics initiatives help mitigate risk in space missions. – Robohub Editors

NASA and and the community developer platform TopCoder are launching a series of coding competitions to help Robonaut 2 learn how to interact with the types of input devices used by human astronauts on the International Space Station. Robonaut 2 was developed by NASA to perform tasks in space that are too dangerous or mundane for astronauts.

ESA is organizing the first robotic competition on a mock-up of the International Space Station (ISS). The competition is open for young people from ESA member states who can compete in three age groups between 11 and 19 years old. The regulations leave a lot of room for innovation and creative freedom, practically only safety requirements are imposed.